Reversing diabetes with fasting

There is some cheer from the research world for diabetics. A recent experiment has shown that diabetes, a disease that is considered irreversible and progressive through one’s lifetime, can be reversed. The pancreas, especially its Beta cells that produce insulin, may be coaxed to regenerate, thus reversing diabetes.

Dr Valter Longo and colleagues from the University of South California, USA, who published their findings in the prestigious journal “Cell”, showed that the pancreas of diabetic mice could be made to regenerate with a special type of ‘fasting’ diet.

What seems to be doing the trick is ‘fasting’, that allows the pancreas respite from continuous barrage of calories demanding more and more production of insulin from a fatigued gland, giving it time to recuperate instead.

In their experiment, diabetic mice were put on a ‘fasting-mimicking diet’ for a few days. The diet was low in calories, carbohydrates and proteins but high in unsaturated fats. The periods of ‘starvation’ were alternated with 25 ‘eat what you want’ days. To their surprise the mice showed marked improvement in diabetes as well as Beta cell function.

Dr Valter Longo said: “Our conclusion is that by pushing the mice into an extreme state and then bringing them back — by starving them and then feeding them again — the cells in the pancreas are triggered to use some kind of developmental reprogramming that rebuilds the part of the organ that’s no longer functioning.”

The emerging pandemic of diabetes seems to be related to continuous excess consumption of calories in genetically predisposed individuals. It leads initially to insulin resistance, where the hormone finds it hard to drive and metabolize glucose in cells, in turn stimulating its increased production in the pancreas. Over time, the gland gets exhausted and insulin production drops off.

Fasting, or for that matter starving, seems to help re-boot the pancreas. Several studies have shown that people who fast periodically have lower chances of developing diabetes. During both world wars, the mortality from diabetes dropped precipitously. In the interwar period, as people went back to their accustomed eating habits, it went back up.

The reason why this news has perhaps not made as big headlines as one would have expected is probably because the therapeutic formula for regenerating the pancreas is neither a drug marketed by a pharmaceutical house, nor a patented fad-diet promoted online.

After the discovery of insulin in the early 1920’s, all the focus turned to it as the ‘cure’ for diabetes. While it was a major advance for type 1, it was not quite the panacea for type 2 diabetes. However, most of the interest in fasting disappeared as doctors focused on what would be their mantra for the next century – drugs, drugs and drugs.

Now with Navratri coming, and Ramzan to follow, or for that matter, any occasion you wish to choose, you could make periodic fasting a promising remedy for the new-age malady.

(The writer is an eminent medical specialist, author and social worker)